TRAIL MAGAZINE
Surrey 7
Calling all mountain-hungry city-dwellers in the south-east – get your hill fix in Surrey when the high peaks are out of reach.
EASY-GOING HILLWALK
The south-east may be somewhat lacking in mountain terrain, but whether you’re stuck in the flatlands, or just looking for a new place to discover a bit closer to home, there’s still plenty of places to get an uphill workout and a dose of the great outdoors.
Around the village of Peaslake is an area known as the Hurtwood – the largest area of common land in Surrey, and one of the very first privately owned areas of the country to create ‘a right to roam’ in 1926. Two miles south of Peaslake, on the Greensand Ridge, lies Pitch Hill (257m) and the nearby Holmbury Hill (261m), which are two of the highest viewpoints in Surrey. Both the Greensand Ridge and the North Downs Way were once remnants of the Wealden Dome and today form part of the Surrey Hills AONB.
1 TQ086448 Turn right out of the car park, turn left at Hurtwood Inn then right at the store. Go left up Radnor Road then left at a fingerpost up a steep bank (Shere Parish Millennium Trail). Go straight across at a barrier and along the lane. Go through another barrier into a wooded avenue. Cross the junction and keep ahead when you reach a junction in a hollow. Proceed uphill along an eroded path, keeping the field to your left. Cross the next junction, heading north-east. Cross another junction and follow an undulating path until you come to a wide walkway with ponds on each side. Keep on an obvious path and take the next left fork past the YHA car park. Maintain your direction along a path, which eventually drops down to a sandy bridleway.
2 TQ106448 Turn right and keep climbing steadily uphill until you reach a 5-way junction with a green bench. Bear right uphill and take next left along the Greensand Way to the toposcope on the summit of Holmbury Hill.
TQ103429 Locate 3 the trig point and go through a nearby gap to follow a Greensand Way arrow downhill. At the next fork, go right to merge with wider track, which continues downhill to a junction and a small pond.
